More on the Barna study, Catholics, etc.

There's a lively discussion going on, around the blogosphere (or is it "blogsphere") about the new Barna study of American Catholics.  (Click here for J. Peter Nixon's helpful Commonweal post.  And, click here for a relevant, recent John Allen column on assimilation and distinctiveness.)  A very thoughtful former student of mine -- who, as it happens, came into full communion with the Catholic Church from an Evangelical background -- sent me some thoughts, and kindly permitted me to blog them:

. . .  It's hard to tell what Catholics are being compared to.  At
>one moment Catholics are compared to "people aligned with other faith
>groups," but at others they are being compared to "other Americans."
>
>Insofar as the study seeks to compare Catholics to "other Americans,"
>I think it is important to recognize that non-active Catholics are
>almost certain to identifying themselves as Catholic, but
>non-active Evangelicals are likely to consider themselves *former*
>Evangelicals (as part of their heritage from the Radical Reformation -
>only the true believers are part of the church).  I would be more
>interested in studying the results of a survey comparing the
>attitudes, beliefs, and practices of active Cathoilcs to society at
>large.
>
>In so far as Barna wants to judge what portion of Catholics are "real
>Christians," it concerns me that some of the metrics he uses pertain
>more to Evangelicals more than to Catholics.  For example, Barna
>defines "active faith" as reading the Bible, praying,
>and attending a church service during the prior week.  But, it seems
>to me that someone might have an active Catholic faith even if he
>didn't pick up a Bible during the past week.  Did Barna ask whether
>that person had prayed the rosary during the week, attended mass other
>than on Sunday, or read Bible *passages* during the prior week (a
>Catholic could, for example, read Scripture in a lectionary or in the
>liturgy of the hours)?
>
>One more example: Barna determined whether Catholics are "born again"
>based on whether they have made a "personal commitment to Jesus Christ
>that is still important in their life today" and who said that "they
>believe that when they die they will go to Heaven *because* they had
>confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior."  But
>these are almost exclusively Evangelical categories that ignore the
>traditional Christian faith.
>
>Catholics don't generally use the term "born again."  But a Catholic
>would respond when asked that he was born again not "at the hour I
>first believed," but at his baptism.  Only once does Christ in the
>Gospels talk about the necessity of being "born again."  And there
>Christ requires not that someone strike up a personal relationship
>with him, but being born of water and the spirit, a clear reference to
>baptism (see http://www.catholic.com/library/Born_Again_in_Baptism.asp).
>
>Again, only an ill-taught Catholic would say that he believes he will
>go to heaven because he had confessed his sins and accepted Jesus
>Christ as his savior.  Catholics, like Calvinists, believe that the
>"perseverence of the saints" is very important.  Catholics believe
>that, as Christ taught in the parable of the Prodigal Son, it is
>possible to be our Father in heaven's child, yet forsake our place in
>his family and walk away.  At that point, we are dead to our Father
>until we return to Him, repent, and ask to be restored to forgiveness.
>The father of mercies will never say no, but he also does not forgive
>us until we have decided that we would rather live in our Father's
>home than eat pig slop.
>
>So, in these significant ways, Barna is not measuring how many
>Catholics are dedicated to their faith, but rather how many Catholics
>are dedicated to Evangelicalism.
>
>But, leaving aside these methodological complaints, there is a lot
>that is troubling in this study.  And there certainly is a lot to what
>Barna says about how Catholics have in essence traded their
>distinctiveness for success and acceptance in American society.  It
>saddens me to see that Catholics have lost their "saltiness" in so
>many ways.  These statistics are grim.  But, it should be said, this
>is not news to Catholics.  Many Catholic laypeople, bishops, and
>priests have been making similar observations for decades.
>
>And their analysis differs significantly from Barna's.  Yes, the shift
>from urban blue-collar immigrant communities to middle class suburbia
>has been an imporant one.  But you can't understand what has happened
>to American Catholicism in the past 50 years without looking at
>Vatican II and how it has been received (and abused) in our culture.
>I believe that Vatican II was a great gift to the Church, but too many
>Catholic leaders thought this was their green light to remake the
>Catholic Church in the image of liberal Protestantism.  As a result,
>millions upon millions of Catholics have been deprived the opportunity
>to learn of the beauty of our faith by priests and nuns captive to an
>alien, liberal ideology.  Thank God, things have been getting better
>and better over the past 20 years.  But, the post-conciliar turbulance
>has taken a great toll.
>
>All that said, you asked me not about my reactions to this survey, but
>about my experience since I converted.  I've seen a lot of lethargy
>and complacency among Catholics, both at Notre Dame and in parishes.
>It saddens and amazes me that so many people come to mass and are not
>(so it seems to me) struck between the eyes by the Gospel.  It
>disappoints me that parishes generally lack the roll-up-your-sleeves,
>can-do volunteerism that mark the best Evangelical congregations.  And
>it confounds me that there is such a divergence between what the
>majority of American Catholics believe and what the Catholic Church
>teaches.
>
>That's the downside.  But there is a lot of upside as well.  I have
>met a lot of wonderful people and deep, deep Christians.  There are so
>many great priests, and I am so thankful for the two we have at our
>parish.  I have learned so much - about the Bible, about our Christian
>heritage, and about what it is to be a Christian man, husband, and
>father.  More importantly, I think I've grown a lot, through my
>reading, through Christian fellowship, and through the sacraments.  I
>love being a Catholic.  It is so satisfying to be part of a Church
>that cares deeply about doctrine and about history.  And the spiritual
>resources are endless.  I have no doubts that this is where God has
>called me, and that this is where I will remain.
>
>All the muckedy-muck that Barna writes about the mediocrity of so much
>American Catholicism, it doesn't affect me that much.  And here's an
>important difference between Catholicism and Evangelicalism.  The
>Catholic Church is not a democratic institution.  If the majority of
>Amercan Evangelicals, readers of Christianity Today, professors at
>Gordon-Conwell, or some other Evangelical institution come to believe
>that women can be pastors . . . then that's what Evangelicalism will
>become.  There's no real stopping it.  But the Catholic Church is very
>different in that regard.  The Church itself is unwavering and it is
>strongly counter-cultural.  It is a great failure that so many
>Catholic clergy and laypeople have strayed from the Church's faith.
>But none of that creates any confusion for anyone who cares enough to
>read the Catechism and listen to papal teaching.  And I think that any
>study of committed Catholics would bear that out.  So I find it's
>rather easy to "tune out" all that noise and focus on what's good,
>beautiful, and true.